Remarks upon Clarifications
For clarified consommés, even more than for the ordinary kind, it is eminently advisable that the meat should be that of old animals. Indeed, it is safe to say that one lb. of meat coming from an animal of eight years will yield much better consommé than two lbs. would, coming from a fattened animal of about three or four years. The consommé will be stronger, mellower, and certainly more tasty, as the flesh of young animals has absolutely no richness of flavour.
It will be seen that I do not refer to any vegetable for the clarification. If the white consommé has been well carried out, it should be able to dispense with all supplementary flavouring, and, the customary error of cooks being rather to overdo the quantity of vegetables—even to the extent of disguising the natural aroma of the consommé—I preferred to entirely abandon [6] ]the idea of vegetable garnishes in clarifications, and thus avoid a common stumbling-block.
[3—CHICKEN CONSOMMÉ]
White chicken consommé is prepared in exactly the same way as ordinary white consommé. There need only be added to the meat, the quantity of which may be lessened, an old hen or a cock, slightly coloured on the spit or in the oven.
For the clarification, the quantity of roast fowl-carcases used may be increased, provided the latter be not too fat. The process, however, is the same as in the clarification of ordinary consommés.
The colour of chicken consommé should be lighter than that of the ordinary kind—namely, a light, amber yellow, limpid and warm.
[4—FISH CONSOMMÉ]
These consommés are rarely used, for Lenten soups with a fish basis are generally thick soups, for the preparation of which the fish [fumet] whereof I shall give the formula later (Formula No. [11]) should avail. Whenever there is no definite reason for the use of an absolutely Lenten consommé, it would be advisable to resort to one of the ordinary kind, and to finish off the same by means of a good fish essence extracted from the bones of a sole or whiting. An excellent consommé is thus obtained, more palatable and less flat than the plain fish consommé.
If, however, one were obliged to make a plain fish consommé, the following procedure should be adopted:—